Flightless

Dane

His father left, taking Violet with him, and he was sitting there, still naked. And he didn't even care. He sat there… he didn't know how long. By the time he blinked and forced himself to move, he was achingly cold, and the room was pitch black.

He stumbled to the bathroom and showered for over an hour desperate to rid his head of all the images—both the beautiful, now tainted memories with Lila, and the flashes of what he remembered from that afternoon.

He'd turned the water as hot as it would go, filling the bathroom with heavy steam, and then he'd stepped under the stream, gritting his teeth against the scream in his skin. And then he'd scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed every inch of himself. 

It hadn't helped. He couldn't get clean.